It’s a whodunit with a comic twist and a motley cast of characters worthy of any rogues’ gallery.

It’s The Pines Dinner Theatre’s highly-inventive, wildly-funny, season-opener “Who Done It?,” an audience-participation murder-mystery stage show.

The show was presented Jan. 18, the performance seen for this review, and Jan. 19, 25, 26 and Feb. 2 at the Allentown theater.

With script, lyrics and direction by Pines’ long-time artistic director Oliver Blatt; original music by the talented Stacey Bechtel, and the help of “accomplices” in the audience, the show is a highly-entertaining respite from the Pines’ musicals format.

Some of the theater-goers are asked to role-play a bevy of supporting characters, including the murder victim Count Baisie, who seemed to have trouble staying dead. No one minded that glitch or the uneven quality of the amateur acting. They were having too much fun.

Heading up the real cast, Cheryl Moritz is terrific as the vampish Miss Ivanna Humpizschlang, a wealthy Russian heiress who was hosting her annual charity ball at her estate, where a donor pledged $1 million during the elite affair. Never mind that Miss Ivanna never disclosed the name of the “very important charity” for which she was raising money.

Flitting around the stage and into the audience in her slinky blue-sequined evening gown, Ivanna kept the spectators engaged and the action in high gear. Her “Black Panther of the Night” moves couldn’t have been more alluring.

Gene Connelly is equally adept at playing Boris Dumbashidz, Ivanna’s ex-husband, a graduate of the Mean Dictator Prep School. With his flamboyant personality and black eyepatch, Boris cajoles the audience into growling every time he raises a finger. To divert attention from the murder, he engages the audience in Russian-style Bingo. “The way we play it in Siberia,” he announces.

Connelly captures the essence of Boris, who could be acerbic and charming, but always the jester.

Enter Detective Dueseux, portrayed by James Ofalt with a decidedly Clouseau-like French accent. He doesn’t have a clue, but insists the murderer was “the greatest criminal mind in the world.” Ofalt is amusing as the bumbling investigator who keeps getting distracted over the argument about whose chicken is the best: General Tso’s or Colonel Sanders.’

Along the way, the audience weighed in with its choice, singing, “Colonel Sanders is our man, doo dah, doo dah, oh the doo dah day.” That was one of the many humorous diversions along the way to solving the murder.

Hint: the butler didn’t do it.

Tickets: Pines Dinner Theatre box office, 448 N. 17th St., Allentown; pinesdinnertheatre.com; 610-433-2333